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in paris when the french police raided the apartment where they holed out, even the terrorists were said to have a mobile shield-on-wheels inside which they used to bounce off the heavy gunfire being poured in once the door was broken.

One project tucked away in the back of the factory is the SOCOM-funded Talus program, a conceptual bionic suit using ballistic body armor not too far off from Tony Stark’s, but in black. It would be for use by the soldiers who need to run through doors first and ask questions later.

we got to respect the fact that the people being sent in now are not soft targets in spray and pray mode....they are hardened convicts with atleast a year of hard training - our tactics and tools have to adapt like using unmanned drones, camera robots, better shields...just going in a fast and hard is not a guarantee of success anymore. we need to be prepared to lose buildings to save lives. amrikan abrams tanks were used to fire directly on such incidents in iraq.

^^^ What I know from personal experience about combat would fill all the pages of a book with no pages, so take it from the arm chair field marshal (small caps) that I am. I remember reading of accounts of house to house fighting that the way some folks did it was to try and start from the top and go down, while other teams were also going up. This is something that I recalled when I saw the picture above, and by no means a commentary on current tactics.

^^^ What I know from personal experience about combat would fill all the pages of a book with no pages, so take it from the arm chair field marshal (small caps) that I am. I remember reading of accounts of house to house fighting that the way some folks did it was to try and start from the top and go down, while other teams were also going up. This is something that I recalled when I saw the picture above, and by no means a commentary on current tactics.

Ditto from myside. Dhruvs could have landed a small unit on the Roof who could have breeched through the windows. Seen our SF do that number of times in training pics.

Also are SF operations executed under Command of the Ground Commander (i.e Rules / Planning / Scope / ROE) or once SF is greenlit do they have sole Jurisdiction of how to achieve the outcome?

It seems from TV News clips that we have still not provided adequate routine equipment to our quick reaction teams like Bullet shields, Heavy BPJs, small arms optics, remote controlled vehicles, sniper rifles etc apart from my view that we need to deploy heavy anti material rifles like OFB vidhawansk and even 106mm RCL upgraded with laser range finders, optics etc for such encounters where terrorists gets entrenched. 9mm SMG or even AK versions are too punny for room to room fighting where other side is armed with AKs & grenades. We need heavier weapons like bull pub 7.62x51 or bullpub 9x45mm type of weapons.

the roof looks quite risky to land being sloping with tin sheets. if there were adjoining buildings someone could perhaps try to sneak up with a huge explosive charge and blow a hole in the roof, but not here.

US also faced similar situation and casualties in Afgan region where most fatalities were from SOCOM or contractors who were former operators. IMHO even the great SEAL do not carry full on body armour worthy of a knight or a great shield.

Point is if the element of surprise is not on your side you will have casualties during first contact. The piglets come prepared specially for this situation, hence casualties are inevitable in room clearing ops.

If the above statements are true, where higher up denied use of heavy weapons, then its a criminal conduct. Why interfere in a military op, maybe it was armies intent to blow up the place to begin with.

Sid wrote:Whenever such situation arises, just lay waste to that enclosed area. Don't engage them in an area where they have advantage. They must have booby trapped and barricaded choke points in the building. Their running to this building could have been a planned move after ambush on CRPF folks.

+1.Would like to additionally add, clear the immediate vicinity of vegetation, foliage or small structures. Maintain vigil of the site, engage snipers from all possible directions and finally do intermittent firing from one side to another to tire out the piglets.

So sad to see our soldiers getting martyred in such situations time and again. It seems casualties are inevitable in such situations when the rats hold the advantage. Can we not just gas them once the rats are trapped in one building rather than sending in troops to clear each and every room?? Not necessarily poisonous gas, but some suffocating or incapacitating gas at least.

The kill ratio of our forces vs pigs in recent encounters exceeding even 1:1 is something which hurts many of us. I understand that these pigs might be the elite or whatever but we gotta do whatever it takes to minimize the fatalities of our armed forces. Like many of them have mentioned, perhaps use of Ballistic Shield during the initial screening could have saved some of the lives. Even during Pathankot attack, I did not see any pics of our forces using ballistic shields. And this point was brought up way back during 26/11 event itself...how ballistic shield is needed for any force in CQB situations.

1) More than 100 people who had to be evacuated2) Its a large campus. Lots of places to hide. More than 50 rooms had to be cleared, one-by-one3) Precise number of terrorists unknown

It was a mini-Mumbai 26/11 style attack.

The forces might have been rushed in to ensure minimal civilian casualties or prevent an extended hostage situation. This might have resulted in SF casualties.

Kudos to the troops for minimizing civilian deaths. Yes, the same ungrateful civilians who tried to storm the encounter site because the terrorists were their co-religionist brothers

Kudos for cordoning off the encounter site & preventing the stone-throwing mob from disrupting operations without resorting to lethal force. If I were in their shoes, I'd have poured lead on the mob. The restraint shown by our forces against ungrateful civilian pigs is admirable.

From what we can glean from reported on TV and posted here, 3 Para (SF) KIA - Capt. Kumar, Capt. Mahajan & L.Nk. Prakash were hit during room entry. Similar to what happened to Hav. Singh at Nariman House and to NSG personnel who fixed the terrorists in the guest & conference rooms at Taj as written by Sandeep Unnithan in Black Tornado. While I am sure the respective training teams at both NSG & Para (SF) would have evaluated the tactics used, any counter tactics that they developed may have been hampered by the lack of equipment such as ballistic shields, thermal imagers etc

What ever happeneed to the brilliant chilli grenades, unmanned armed bots to take down such pigs? Didn't the last offcial video from SF show them deploying armed bots? Their death was so easily avoidable.

Again a kind request (posters/mods): Please don't post gruesome pictures of the dead directly in your posts. Better to put a link with a warning that the images are graphic. Those who want to view can then willing do so.

we can expect more of these situations in future, some options as far as buildings go is, using Netra sort of micro UAVas to fly inside the bldg and setup a motion detector attached to the roof, its purpose would be to detect entry and exit from the rooms on that floor, with each floor having these installed all the doorways are under watch reducing guess work. As an example there is typing on virtual keyboards, the layout is a laser projection and a camera detects the keystrokes by the finger position on the virtual keyboard, here the rooms are identified and a video feed is sent.

on the outside the LCH with its EO ball positions itself so it has the entire side of the building in its FoV, like point and shoot cameras identifying faces, the software would allow identifying windows and doors that are projected as small cells on a large screen and as soon as motion is detected in a window, the corresponding cell is automatically enlarged for a detailed view, finger tapping on a point in the cell, the chin mounted gun is aimed there, one can attach a UBGL as well to the gun

btw, the EO ball can on a ground vehicle too as long as the FoV spans the entire building side allowing snipers to aim

Kanhaiya Kumar from JNU booked for sedition, Umar & others arrested for sedition ... don't want to get into what actually happened, were the videos doctored or not etc.. But this is crystal clear and is the height of sedition... well that's a light word .. I'd term this as treason - while our best & brightest were fighting & dying .. so called citizens of the country were cheering for Paki terrorists

As per Maroof Raza on Timesnow debate, both SF officers were not posted in J&K but were there as attachment to learn the state of operations and could have easily stood by and let the CRPF, Police, Army handle it. But they jumped in seeing the situation, showing the true valor of our men.

Whoever is playing the crisis manager in a standoff situation, have the ability to broadcast active shooting scene message to all cell phones within the area to alert the potential hostages? if they are in a building asking them to barricade their doors

Just to give Context to our discussion on the Equipment Gap of SF soldiers and resulting Casualties.

Below are excerpts from citation of the Recent MoH given to a Navy SEAL in Astan. A SEAL platoon rescued an American Doctor held in a one story building by the Taliban (2012)

The SEALs rushed to the doorway and Byers ripped down the six layers of blankets that covered the entryway. Another member of Byers' SEAL team, Chief Petty Officer Nicolas Checque, entered the building and was immediately shot. Checque later died from his wound.

When Byers (MoH recipient) entered the building, he engaged in hand-to-hand combat with one guard, then flung his body on top of Joseph to shield him from the firefight in the room.

While shielding Joseph (Hostage), Byers fought with another guard and was able to pin him to the wall.

Very Interesting Read of the Crisis within the American SOF units. - Burnout, Suicides, PTDS, High Death Rates - Parallels can be drawn with the overuse/dependence even the Indian Army has on SF units in Kashmir and the body count being built up.

Maj Deswal .. 21 SF was leading an op in 59 Bde AOR .... Contact with terrorists wherein 01 killed and one suspected killed in action ... He sustained 02 gun shot wounds in stomach and right thigh.. And succumbed to his injuries ... Was a commando dagger

Maj Amit Deswal was commissioned on 10 Jun 2006 into Regt Of Arty. After his basic service he recognised that his calling is somewhere more adventurous.. He opted for Special Group at first but finally opted and was selected and marooned into the coveted Special Forces. .

He joined the elite unit in Jan 2011.He was physically robust which was reflected in his performance at the 'Ghatak Course ', where he secured ' Commando Dagger - Best Student' at 8 yrs of service .

Maj Deswal .. 21 SF was leading an op in 59 Bde AOR .... Contact with terrorists wherein 01 killed and one suspected killed in action ... He sustained 02 gun shot wounds in stomach and right thigh.. And succumbed to his injuries ... Was a commando dagger

Maj Amit Deswal was commissioned on 10 Jun 2006 into Regt Of Arty. After his basic service he recognised that his calling is somewhere more adventurous.. He opted for Special Group at first but finally opted and was selected and marooned into the coveted Special Forces. .

He joined the elite unit in Jan 2011.He was physically robust which was reflected in his performance at the 'Ghatak Course ', where he secured ' Commando Dagger - Best Student' at 8 yrs of service .

He got inducted in Manipur for Op Hifazat II in Jan 2016.

Sad RIP brave soul. Shot to the stomach and right thigh, this man would have survived if he had proper armor. Why oh why do they continue to operate without armor.